
Glass. 
Book_ 



Ju 



MEMORIAL DISC0UE8E 



c;PrAEACTEPv 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



I'llKSIDr.N'T OF THE UNITED STATES, 



DELIVERED AT HOLLIS. N. H., 

ON THK DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, JUNE 1, 18G5. 



BY 

P. B. DAA", 

■ASTOR OK THE CONGUEGATIONAL CIIURCI 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



CONCOED : 
PRINTED BY MrFAELAND &_iE N K S 
1865. 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE 



CHARACTER 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



PKESIDENT OP THE UNITED STATES, 



DELIVERED AT HOLLIS, N. H., 



ON THE DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, JUNE 1, 1865. 



r. B. l^AY, 

PASTOR OF THE COKGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 



PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST. 



CONCORD : 

PKINTED BY McFARLAND & JENKS 

1865. 






1898 



DISCOUKSE 



We are here to-day, my friends, at the request 
of the highest authority of our land, to unite with 
the great mass of our countrymen in the memorial 
services of our late lamented and endeared President. 
The mysterious events of a wise Providence have 
taken from us the second Father of our Country, and 
a bereaved nation mourns. A cruel and ruthless 
hand has smitten him down, and bathed us all in 
tears. We have come to mingle our sorrows; to 
dwell upon his virtues, and to learn such lessons as 
his untimely death is calculated to teach. 

Never, since time began, has the departure of one 
man filled so many hearts with sadness, and never 
have so many gathered, on one occasion of mourning, 
as will be gathered this day. The cruel manner of 
our President's death; the critical period of pubhc 
affairs in which he fell; the loss of so much 
experience, talent, and honest purpose, and the 
sundering of so many cords of personal love, all 
conspire to make the event one of the most 
mournful interest. All civilized nations tender us 
their sympathy, and unite with us in sorrowing 
over our sad bereavement. Thirty millions of hearts 
have been pierced by one foul blow of the assassin, 



and all the enliglitened world pause to sigh, and to 
utter their grief. The very Goddess of Liberty 
comes to the bier of her martyred chief, with folding 
robes, to weep. 

That my remarks may take the form of a religious 
discourse, they will be based upon — 

II. SAMUEL 3 : 32. 38. 
"And the King lifted up his voice and wept at the 

GRAVE OP AbNER, AND ALL THE PEOPLE WEPT AnD 

the King said unto his servants, know ye not that 
THERE IS A Prince and Great Man fallen in Israel this 

DAY." 

There were two things which made the death of 
Abner such an afflictive event among the Jews. 
One was the tnanner hy which he came to his 
end. He was invited aside, to hold a friendly 
interview, by one of equal rank with himself, and 
there, while enjoying, as he supposed, the protection 
of friendship and of honor, he was stabbed under 
the fifth rib, and died. The deed was regarded 
with horror by friends and foes, and all alike 
bewailed the event. David would have put to 
death the assassin, as he did those of Saul and 
Mephibosheth, but he found the sons of Zeruiah 
too hard for him, and he left the punishment to 
Solomon, who executed his father's command. 

The other consideration Avhicli enhanced the grief 
of the Jews was the fact that a man of great worth 
had fallen. Precisely in what Abner's greatness 
consisted, his brief biography does not inform us, but 
certain it is he was a man possessing extraordinary 



virtues. It was the combination of these two 
circumstances that threw the Avhole Jewish people 
into such depths of sorrow. 

It is these two considerations that have pierced 
so deeply the heart of this great nation, in the 
death of Abraham Lincoln. He had led this people 
through the most trying period that a people ever 
passed. He took the helm of state at a time when 
the storm was breaking upon us ; when the political 
sky was filled with dark, portentous clouds; when 
the hearts of men quailed with fear; and, by a 
rare sagacity and fi^rmness, he j^i^oted us through, 
our perils. Though at first unknown, his signal 
ability and devotion soon secured our confidence 
and love. We saw his comprehensive thought; 
his christian faith; his cheerful disposition; his 
persistency in the right; his reliance on divine 
support ; his integrity, firmness, and superior foresight, 
and our hearts went out toward him. They clustered 
around him as the magnetic sands around the needle, 
or as a family of children around a father, when a ])east 
of prey howls around the dwelling. We felt a great 
security while he was guiding our destinies, and 
worked on in cheerfulness and in hope. We should 
have been sad, indeed, had he fallen by disease. Yet, 
had God sent some messenger of sickness or accident 
to cut him off, we should have had the grief, without 
the indignation ; but when cruelty and atrocity are 
added, our cup is more than full. Our grief, our 
sense of justice, our holy and unholy cravings for 
revenge, are aU aroused, and the national heart cries 
out for redress from the depths of her sorrow. 

But Mr. Lincoln and his cruel murderer are both 



6 

gone to their reward, and we will not pause to 
scrutinize further this mysterious Providence. Justice 
has been defrauded of her dues, by the sudden death 
of the assassin. Before the victim at which he aimed 
his deadly blow was in his tomb, he died in agony, 
and was ingloriously buried in an unknown grave. 
Millions of curses roll over his head, and the 
execrations of posterity will sink him deeper and 
deeper in infamy. Mr. Lincoln's name will stand 
upon the pages of history as the great martyr of 
civil liberty, and will be honored and admired to the 
end of time. Washington and Franklin lived for the 
Republic. Mr. Lincoln died for it ; and so long as a 
monument of American greatness and virtue shall 
stand, his will be visited and revered. 

Among the many causes which have led to so deep 
and universal regret at his death is the fact that he 
was beloved by the nation, and they loved him 
because he first loved them. Love is a rare attribute 
in the chief magistrate of a great people. We do 
not demand nor expect that he who stands at the 
helm of state shall be a lovely or loving man. We 
have even felt that such virtues would disqualify 
one for the sterner duties of judicial or military 
administration. We have demanded justice, firmness, 
integrity, comprehensive views of government, and 
have thought that the less of the heart the better. 
We have so long regarded an iron will and an iron 
heart as the first requisite for a ruler, that we have 
thought tenderness and love a weakness. But Mr. 
Lincoln has changed our views. He was one of those 
rare men who could sit with dignity and ability in 
the chair of State, under the ermine of domestic and 



social virtue. While he was equal to any of his 
peers in statesmanship, and could hold the reins of 
government with firmness and strength, he could also 
assume the position of a father, brother and friend. 
While he commanded respect and admiration as a 
magistrate, he threw around him a greater charm by 
the manly and lovely virtues of his great heart. lie 
often denied men their requests, but he did it so 
kindly and convincingly that they went away feeling 
he was their best friend. 

He had neither pomp nor aristocracy in his veins. 
He was born and always lived among the common 
people. All his associations were with that class 
w^ho obtained a livelihood by honest toil, and who 
cherish the domestic virtues. Believing these virtues 
to be the underlying elements of all elevated 
humanity, whether in high life or in low, he took 
them to himself He had no sympathy with that 
so-called high, chivalrous life, which ignores purity, 
affection and love. 

Accordingly, when he was elevated to the chief 
office of the nation, he brought his character with 
him. He went into the White House determined to 
be a ?»««, as well as a ruler; and if compelled, in 
some measure, to conform to the common usages of 
diplomacy, he would not sink his manhood. He 
would still be kind, merciful and true to christian and 
social virtue. 

Hence the people loved him — loved him as they 
never loved a President before. He was plain, honest, 
straight-forward, unsophisticated. They saw he was 
unambitious, and had the courage to stand between 
intriguing politicians and themselves. They heard 



8 

of his genial humor, his amusing stories, his happy 
illustrations, and, above all, his instinctive, genuine 
good sense, and persistency in the right. They saw 
his self-abnegation, and his continual aim at the 
public good. They saw that he laid aside the robes 
and airs of royalty, and came down among them. 
Their souls went out toward him as a man after their 
own heart. When he spoke it was like a brother or 
a father. The soldier in his misfortune, the mother 
in her sorrow, and the wife in her grief, were not 
afraid to approach him. You well remember that 
wife who stood three days in the ante-chamber of his 
house, with a babe in her arms, to ask the pardon of 
a husband about to be shot, and how the cry of that 
child awoke all the tenderness of his great heart, and 
secured the husband's release, and how the old servant 
said, " Madam, it was the haby that did it." You 
remember, also, that mother whose husband and three 
sons had enlisted in the service, and who, after the 
death of her husband, came to ask the discharge of 
one of the sons, to help sustain herself and little 
ones, and that before the order of release had reached 
that son he was also dead, and how she came again, 
and the President said, " I know what you want, you 
need not ask; we will divide the other two sons 
between us. You shall have one, and I will retain 
the other." You remember, too, how this grateful 
mother, with tears running down her cheeks, dared to 
pass her trembling hand over his rough hair, as he sat 
writing an order for the son's discharge, and said, 
" The Lord bless you, Mr. President." Is it strange 
that such a ruler should be loved by his people ? Is 
it strange that they should exclaim, in the bereaving 



strains of the ancient bard, " Thou wast slain in thine 
high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother. 
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love 
to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." 

The people also had great confidence m Mr. 
Lincoln's judgynent, as well as love for his character. 
Burke said that confidence was a plant of slow 
growth ; but under the pressure of emergencies it will 
sometimes grow fast. That was true of Mr. Lincoln. 
When he assumed his official trust, the dark clouds of 
war were hovering around us. He was a stranger to 
us, and we were fearful. He came from civil life, and 
without military experience. The circumstances of 
the country were all new ; there was no fixed and 
settled policy. Public sentiment was like immense 
sea-surges, rolling over the breakers. All was agita- 
tion. If there was any man in which the country 
had confidence, it was in General Scott. What Mr. 
Lincoln did was of course subject to the severest 
criticism ; not so much because his critics were sure 
he was wrong, as they could not see, in their own 
inexperience, that he was right. They had no confi- 
dence in their own judgment, and therefore had none 
in his. His official position often prevented him from 
explaining the reason for his course, and crafty poli- 
ticians were constantly thwarting his plans. He, 
therefore, was misjudged. But as time passed, and 
the reasons of his policy were more fully known, and 
he became more independent of the earlier influences 
which surrounded him, the people saw his superior 
wisdom. They saw that he had a farther reach of 
mind than themselves ; that he took into view and bal- 
anced considerations which they had not thought of; 



10 

that he swept the whole horizon of pubhc interest in 
his vision. They learned at length to suspend their 
judgment when in doubt about his policy, and to wait 
till all the facts were made public ; and so uniformly 
did his wisdom appear, that they trusted him as a 
child does a father. His opinions were law. When, 
therefore, he was taken from us, we felt that our 
compass had been dropped into the midst of the sea, 
and we were left with the ship of state on our hands 
upon a dark, tempestuous ocean. But thanks to Him 
who has hitherto shaped our destiny, we are still on 
our course, and, though guided by another compass, 
we trust it will also be true to the polar star of 
Liberty and Union. 

The people, likewise, had great confidence in Mr. 
Lincoln's honesty. He inherited this virtue from his 
boyhood, and brought it to the Presidential Chair. 
His early designation was "Honest Abe." This 
virtue was so fully constitutional, and so long 
habitual, that many thought it would disqualify him 
to cope with cunning politicians. But it has been 
seen that a true, honest purpose is not incompatible 
with able statesmanship, and that men can success- 
fully wield the scepter of state without letting 
themselves down into the mine of political chicanery. 
This virtue was as grateful to the people as it was 
rare. There is something, as Mr. "Webster says, about 
plain honesty in a ruler, that takes wonderfully with 
the people. It is this, more than all things else, that 
gives us security in our public interests. Who does 
not know that every civilized country has suffered 
more for the want of lionesty than of ability, in their 
rulers ? Statesmanship is now a science, and reduced 



11 

to rules, and men of ordinary capacity can succeed in 
it. It is not superiority here that we need, as much 
as unswerving integrity. We need men of intelli- 
gence, to see the right with firmness enough to 
maintain it ; discernment, to discover the wrong, with 
principle and independence enough to oppose it. We 
need men who can cut off supernumeraries ; keep the 
hands of under officers out of the public treasury, and 
discharge those who are untrue to their trusts; men 
whom others can not approach with a bribe ; before 
whom others fear to be dishonest, and who stand 
before the w^hole nation as a personification of 
rectitude. Mr. Lincoln has inaugurated a new 
dispensation in this respect Who ever said or 
thought he was subtle or tricky ? Who ever felt 
he would tolerate such a course in those over whom 
he had authority? We are grateful for his rare 
example of honest purpose. 

The people also had confidence in his sagacity to 
manage our great national conflict. We sometimes 
speak of greatness in men, as if it always consisted 
in making eloquent speeches, in going deep into the 
mysteries of science, or in laying up masses of ancient 
learning. But greatness often runs in other directions, 
and makes other achievements. Men are often great 
who are singularly destitute of all these attainments. 
That man is great who is so deeply versed in the 
practical duties of life as to use men and things so as 
to accomplish a great end. He is great who can use 
great men at his pleasure ; wdio can discover their 
talents, w^eaknesses, and sagacity, and shape their 
course for a given purpose, and who knows by instinct 
what others learn in schools and by experience. Mr. 



12 

Lincoln had this greatness. It was the greatness of 
intuition. His native sagacity taught him what 
others obtained by study and observation. Some of 
his generals sought to override his judgment because 
they had graduated at West Point. But his strong 
good sense was better than their science. Jealousy 
among our military leaders was our greatest evil. 
Campaign after campaign failed on this account, and 
Mr. Lincoln was obliged to raise up one and put 
down another. It seemed he would not have a friend 
left, and yet his removals were always so kind and so 
clear in their necessity, that he secured the good will 
of nearly all. 

But the rarest and highest virtue of our fallen 
chief was his christian faith. It is rare that we can 
speak wdth so much confidence and satisfaction of a 
statesman's religious character. The last request on 
leaving his fellow-citizens at his home in Springfield 
was,"Pray for me." And we have reason to believe that 
from that day till the day of his death he was himself 
a praying man. It has been said by those who knew, 
that his first duty in the morning was a season of 
devout meditation on the holy scriptures, and a bow- 
ing at the altar. His last inaugural was a wonderful 
production, and indicated a high christian culture. 
Some have called it a religious homily. It was rather 
the outbreathing of a great statesman's heart, who 
dared to recognize the hand of God in the rule of 
nations, and to exhort the people to do justly and 
love mercy. It came from a mind imbued with the 
spirit of the gospel. " Fondly do we hope and 
fervently do we pray." " With malice toward none ; 
with charity for all ; with firmness in the right, as 
God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish 



13 

the work we are in, and to bind up the nation's 
wounds." Such were the noble christian* sentiments 
of our departed chief, which secured love and respect 
for him among thousands at home and abroad. 

When a company of clergymen called to pay Mr. 
Lincoln their respects in the darkest days of our civil 
conflict, he said, " Gentlemen, my hope of success in 
this great and terrible struggle rests on the immutable 
foundations of justice, and the goodness of God ; and 
when events are very threatening and prospects are 
very dark, I still hope, in some way which man can 
not see, all will be well in the end, because our cause 
is just, and God is on our side." It is said, on the 
day of the receipt of the capitulation of Gen. Lee, 
the Cabinet meeting was held an hour earlier than 
usual. " Neither the President nor any member of 
the Cabinet was for the time able to give utterance 
to his feelings. At the suggestion of Mr. Lincoln all 
dropped on their knees, and offered in silence and in 
tears their humble and heartfelt acknowledgments to 
the Almight}^, for the triumph he had granted to the 
national cause." It is in these little incidents, which 
speak volumes, that we see the workings of a 
christian heart. 

" I can never think," says one, " of that toil-worn 
man, rising long before the household, and spending 
an hour with his Maker and his Bible, without tears. 
In that silent hour of communion he has drawn from 
the fountain which has fed all those qualities that 
have so won on our faith and love. Ah, what tears, 
what prayers, what aspirations, what lamentations, 
what struggles have been witnessed by the four walls 
of that quiet room. Aye, what food have the angels 
brought him there ! There, day after day, while we 



14 

have been sleeping, has he knelt and prayed for us, 
prayed for the country, prayed for victory, prayed for 
wisdom and guidance, prayed for strength for his 
great mission, prayed for the accomplishment of his 
great purposes. There has he found consolation in 
trial, comfort in defeat and disaster, patience in 
reverses, courage in labor, wisdom in perplexity, and 
peace in the consciousness of God's approval."* It 
was while standing by the graves of the heroes of 
Gettysburg, who laid down their lives for us, that he 
gave his heart to One who had laid down his life for 
him. And do we know, my friends, how much of our 
success in our late military struggles we owe to the 
divine guidance given to our President ? What 
confidence, what courage, what love these prayers of 
his have inspired in us all ? Our leader, commander- 
in-chief, our foremost man in all the nation, like Moses 
and David kneeling at the altar, a simple-hearted 
child of God. What a new and strange thing for 
these latter days ! What a noble example is left on 
record for the rising young men of our land ! 

These are some of the leading features of this 
remarkable man who has been taken from us ; and 
these features are the more remarkable when we 
remember the great deficiency in his early training. 
They show an extraordinary mind, and what a true 
and honest purpose, with the blessing of God, can 
accomplish for a diligent man without the advantages 
of schools. 

" He was a man, take hira all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again." 

A late issue of a London paper sums up the 
character of Mr. Lincoln in the following language : 

* Dr. Holland's address at Springfield, Mass. 



15 

And we take pleasure in presenting it, because it 
comes from a source where we should not be likely to 
find an over-drawn eulogy : 

" To us Abraham Lincoln has always seemed the 

finest character produced by the American war on 

either side of the struggle. He was great not merely 

by the force of genius — and only the word genius 

will describe the power of intellect by which he 

guided himself and his country through such a crisis 

— but by the simple, natural strength and grandeur 

of his character. Talleyrand once said of ^ a great 

American statesman, that without experience he 

Mivined' his way through any crisis. Mr. Lincoln 

thus divined his way through the perilous, exhausting 

and unprecedented difficulties which might well have 

broken the strength and blinded the prescience of 

the best trained professional statesman. He seemed 

to arrive by instinct — by the instinct of a noble, 

unselfish and manly nature — at the very ends which 

the highest of political genius, the longest of political 

experience, could have done no more than reach. He 

bore himself fearlessly in danger, calmly in difficulty, 

modestly in success. The world was at last beginning 

to know how good, and, in the best sense, how great 

a man he was. It had long, indeed, learned that he 

was as devoid of vanity as of fear, but it had only 

just come to know what magnanimity and mercy the 

hour of triumph would prove that he possessed. 

Reluctant enemies were just beginning to break into 

euloo:y over his wise and noble clemency, when the 

dastard hand of a vile murderer destroyed his noble 

and valuable life. We in England have something to 

feel ashamed of when we meditate upon the true 

greatness of the man so ruthlessly slain. Too many 

Enghshmen lent themselves to the vulgar and ignoble 

cry which was raised against him. English writers 

degraded themselves to the level of the coarsest 

caricaturists when they had to tell of Abraham 



16 

Lincoln. They stooped to criticise a foreign pcatriot 
as a menial might comment on the bearing of a hero. 
They sneered at his manners, as if Cromwell was a 
Chesterfield; they accused him of ugliness, as if 
Mirabeau was a beauty ; they made coarse pleasantry 
of his figure, as if Peel was a posture master ; they 
were facetious about his dress, as if Cavour was a 
D'Orsay ; they were indignant about his jokes, as if 
Palmerston never jested. We do not remember any 
instance smce the wildest days of British fury against 
the ' Corsican Ogre,' in which a foreign statesman 
was ever so dealt with in English writings as Mr. 
Lincoln. And when we make the comparison we can 
not but remember that while Napoleon was our 
unscrupulous enemy, Lincoln was our steady friend. 
Assailed by the coarsest attacks on this side the ocean, 
tried by the sorest temptations on that, Abraham 
Lincoln calmly and steadfastly maintained a policy of 
peace with England, and never did a deed, never 
wrote or spoke a word, which was unjust or unfriendly 
to the British nation. Had such a man died by the 
hand of disease in the hour of his triumph, the world 
must have mourned for his loss. That he has fallen 
by the coward hand of a vile assassin, exasperates 
and embitters the grief beyond any power of 
language to express." — London Star, mtf- 

Such at last came to be the estimate which our 
friends across the water put upon our cherished 
President. Such we believe will be the final verdict 
of the civilized world. 

Mr. Lincoln lived to see the last throes of the 
rebellion, and we thank God that, like Moses, he was 
permitted to see the promised land. He led his 
people to the borders, and gazed upon it, and we 
prayed he might go over Jordan and possess it. But 
God had a higher and more glorious reward for him. 



17 

He had toiled, and wept, and prayed for his people, 
and now the time had come to give his labors into 
other hands ; to lay down his armor, and take up his 
crown. And we doubt not, while we are clothed in 
habiliments of mourning in his behalf; while our 
pillars, and pulpits, and rostrums are draped ; while 
our minute guns are firing, our flags are at half mast, 
and we are pronouncing his eulogies, he is dressed in 
the royal robes of his exalted Master, and is joining 
the great orchestra of heaven in pceans of victory. 
We are weeping, he is rejoicing. We are toiling, he 
is resting. We are going toward the grave, he is 
receding from it. We are bearing the cross and he 
is wearing the crown. Nevertheless we mourn. We 
mourn as one friend mourneth for another. We 
mourn his loss in our national councils, the loss of his 
excellent example, the loss of his intuitive wisdom 
and his experience, and more than ail, the manner of 
his death. He went into the place of public resort, 
not to please himself, but to please the people, and 
while there, in this act -of kindness, a vile hand struck 
him down. 

While we thus mourn, we are thankful that his sun 
went down without a spot upon it. Few public men 
die without leaving some record of serious mistakes 
or folly. But Mr. Lincoln was a rare exception in 
this resj)ect. Not that every act of his, in all its 
details, will be found to be the wisest possible that 
might have been, but no blemish will adhere to his 
name. His memory will shine in ages to come like a 
fixed star in a cloudless night, on which continents 
may gaze with admiration. 

As painful as the event of our President's death is 



18 

to us, we think we can see the divine hand in it. It 
was necessary that this great, superlative act of 
treason, which has cost the North, according to official 
statements, two hundred and forty thousand Hves, 
and the South probably more than that number, 
should be shown to the world in its true light ; that 
it should make its culmination in such an act as will 
stamp its odious character for all time. It was 
necessary to present it right in history, and especially 
to arouse public sentiment at the North to mete out 
justice to the leading spirits of the rebellion. This 
last foul act has opened the eyes of the civilized 
world, and led them more fully to appreciate the 
animus of the crime with which we have been 
contending. Our first impressions were that the plot 
of assassination was confined to a few fanatics. But 
the evidence in trial goes more and more to implicate 
the Confederate authorities, and the blame of the act 
does not rest so much on the immediate agents in the 
plot, as upon those who directly or indirectly 
encouraged them. Especially upon authorities privy 
to it, and upon the disloyal press both North and 
South. If there are any special criminals in this 
work they are the reputed wise men who have talked 
treason, and the press which has lent its influence to 
slander and blacken the character of the President. 
This is the virus which has poisoned poor, unbalanced 
minds, and urged them on to their deadly deeds. So 
history will ever view it. It was Booth who shot the 
President; but Booth was educated for the deed. 
He had masters who taught and encouraged him, and 
who fired up his deadly passions to the work. These 
masters were those, whether with pen or voice, who 



19 

.vilified the Chief of the nation. If a tithe of what 
they said was true, it might almost seem that one was 
doing God's service to remove him. And the next 
great mission which we have to do for our country 
will be to check the lawlessness of the press. Let 
men discuss principles as fully and as plainly as they 
please ; let them state facts in regard to the public 
acts of men ; let them not apologize for nor throw 
any disguise over official corruption, but let them not 
blacken the character of honest and worthy men, so as 
to make them appear as monsters. Who does not see 
that this is offering a reward to the reckless and 
fanatical to cut them off. Who does not see that our 
tree of liberty never can flourish under this constant 
girdling of its trunk. 

Turning from the past to the future, let us be 
thankful that we have been carried through the perils 
of a gigantic civil war, and have secured a complete 
triumph, and not an ignoble peace. We have, 
surrendered to us, the last regiment of Confederate 
soldiers, and have in our possession the man who, 
above all, is the personification of the rebellion. And 
there will be strength and firmness enough we trust 
in the government to give him his dues. We have 
likewise destroyed the causes of the rebellion, by 
cutting up the roots of that institution out of which 
it grew. 

Who would have thought that in so short time all 
these portentous war clouds would have passed away, 
and the olive branch of peace would have cast its 
shadow on all our borders ? Who would have thought 
that secession would have come to such an inglorious 
end, and taper out in a grand finale of a woman's dress. 



'■"> 



God has brought in the ridiculous to help in giving 
odiousness to the crime ; and it will not be strange if 
the emblem of secession will hereafter be a spurred 
man, decked with crinoline and halter. " Though hand 
join in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished." 
We are thus taught the wisdom and the safety of trust- 
ing in the right. Though our pathway is dark, and not 
a star is seen gleaming through the threatening clouds, 
it is safe to press onward in duty. It maj^ cost us dear, 
but our reward is sure. 

Let us then learn to prize our government more. 
Let us remember what it has done for us in these 
tempestuous times. How it has preserved order, and 
made our homes sacred amid the confusion of civil 
war. Let us cling more closely to the old ship of 
state that has been tempestrtost so long, but has 
finally brought us all safe into port. Though the old 
pilot has been taken from us, let us trust the new. 
Let us be wise in adjusting our remaining difficulties, 
that we may go forth on our new mission before the 
world, — that of carrying the blessing of liberty, 
intelligence, enterprise and Christianity to our entire 
race. Millions will be allured to our shores by the 
virtues of Washington and Lincoln, and help to roll 
the tide of civilization on to the Pacific, while the 
moral grandeur of our institutions and our victories 
will command the respect of all the earth. 



*r/ 



